Chapter 3

It was 7:45 when the librarian finally showed up. Josh stood up to greet the lady as she wobbled up to the library, “Good morning Mrs. Hobkins.”

“Oh! Good morning, Jake!” She smiled, her old face wrinkling. The old lady still didn’t remember Josh’s name. Typical.

Mrs. Hobkins took glasses that were hanging around her neck and slid them on the bridge of her nose then stuck a shaky key-holding-hand out to the door of the library and unlocked it. With a click, she heaved the heavy metal door open. Josh hurriedly ran over to the door and held it open for the older lady. “Thank you,” she squeaked as she entered the building. The library was cool inside and smelled like old parchment. It also smelled like old lady, thanks to the 20 years Mrs. Hobkins worked in it.

Josh relaxed once as he was in the library. The moist, humid air was outside and no longer sticking to his skin. Once as they were inside, the librarian hobbled away, leaving Josh standing by the entrance alone. Now that she was inside, Mrs. Hobkins made a ‘B’ line for her desk and sat in her chair, then began furiously typing at her computer, seemingly now oblivious to Josh.

Not even worrying about the way the librarian immediately dismissed him, the teenager walked deeper in the building. Muscle memory guiding him past the stairs to the next floor, and past all the tables, and computers, and study rooms. Going through a maze of book shelves, Josh found himself in the very back of the library. Lastly, the boy turned down one final hall and came to a table surrounded by three walls of books.

When Josh was a freshmen, he found this place, and soon came to realize that no one else knew that this ‘room’ even existed. Ironically, this section of the library was also the only place biology books are kept. At first Josh only came here because it was the only place in the library that wasn’t infested with upperclassmen, but slowly it became his hangout. It was quite and no one else bothered him. Luke didn’t even know where it was.

Now that Josh was alone once more, he slid his things onto the wooden table in front of him and took a seat. With the privacy of the bookshelf walls, the boy took out his sketch book and resumed drawing.

The library stayed relatively quiet for the morning. It wasn’t until 8:20 that miscellaneous teenage voices carried their way to Josh’s ears. Despite the audible crowds of teenagers in the building, Josh had no fear of being disturbed, and continued minding his own business.

When the first morning bell rang at 8:30, Josh quickly packed up his notebook and pencils, then walked across the high school campus to his home room, where he would finally get his class schedule. While walking, he met up with his friends and began the normal discussion of what each person did over the summer.

“I completed the whole Halo series for the fourth time!”

“I worked at Target the whole time.”

“I got to third base with Stacy!”

“I got a dog.”

“Josh and I worked at that old camp as counselors.”

           

A smile slowly crept over Josh’s face as the senseless chatter of his friends filled his ears. He was happy to back in the real world.

            

The day carried on normally. In his home room, Josh got his schedule that told what each of his periods were and what classrooms they were held in. He was even lucky enough to get his free period in the last slot of the day. Since there was no actually teaching involved in any of the classes on the first day, just introductions, all the classes passed by Josh in a blur. Before he knew it, the bell signifying lunch had rang and he was already in the sea of kids waiting for food in the overly crowded lunch lines.

            

After collecting his alien-looking ‘food’, he made his way over a group of familiar faces. Sitting at large wooden lunch table was Luke and the rest of Josh’s friends. Slapping his lunch tray on the table, Josh then slid onto the bench, taking a seat next to Luke.

“So what classes did you get?” Luke managed to stay with a mouthful of cheeseburger as Josh sat down.

“I got all the necessary classes in the morning, and my last period is free.” Josh responded while taking a neatly folded piece of paper out of his pocket. He gave it to Luke to look over. As his eyes skimmed over Josh’s schedule, Luke’s lips mouthed the words.

“Necessary classes?” Luke looked up from the page, “you’re in AP lit and honors calc! How are those normal ‘necessary classes’??” He shook his head and muttered, “Freakin’ smart people…” Josh let out a chuckle.

            Out of nowhere, Luke turned back to the sea of children. Josh followed his gaze and saw two pretty girls emerge from the crowed. They both let out soft smiles when they saw the two boys looking in their direction. When they reached the table, the taller brunette leaned down to Luke and gave him a peck on the lips before taking the other seat next to him.

            While Sarah had her light brown hair tied up in a sloppy bun, and was wearing a solid black t-shirt with denim jeans and flip flops, her best friend, who was about to sit directly across from Josh, was wearing a bright yellow dress that hugged her in all the right places that showed off all of her curves, and directed all attention to her chest. Her blond curls bounced as she sat down. She looked like she spent hours creating the perfect ‘first day of school outfit’.

“Hey Natalie,” Josh greeted with a kind smile.

“Hey!” She responded with her syrupy sweet voice, “How did you sleep last night? I didn’t get home until 2:00am, how about you?”

“I got home around 1:00. But I slept like a baby,” Josh laughed

“Yea, me too,” Natalie chirped. After a short paused she continued, “Hey, listen, I had a really fun time with you this summer, and I was wondering-”

“Dude!” Luke interrupted Natalie and begun shoving Josh’s shoulder in excitement. “Dude. Dude. Dude. Dude-”

“What!” Josh snapped at Luke, sending an apologetic gaze at Natalie.

“You want to go to a party tonight at 7:00?” Luke asked eagerly, his blonde eyebrows turning up in excitement.

Josh just sighed, “I can’t that’s when I have dinner, you know that.” Immediately Josh felt guilty for the way Luke’s bright blue eyes dimmed. All his excitement diminishing, knowing how the next couple words would play out. 

“Just tell your dad you’re helping with homework.”

“I can’t. I already got in trouble this morning for being late to breakfast. He’ll skin me alive if I miss another meal. Plus, I have homework,” Josh lied.

“It’s the first day of school,” Luke bargained.

“AP lit and honors calc,” Josh reminded. Luke groaned at that response and shrugged against Sarah. This was the normal routine. Luke would find the coolest parties to go to, or manage to get invited to some of the biggest high school events, his social skills getting him to know almost everyone in the school, he would then always invite Josh, then Josh always gave an excuse: Too much homework, family gatherings, didn’t get the text, watching the twins, the list goes on. You would think at some point Luke would stop asking. But no. Every time something came up, Josh was the first person he would come to.

            Josh has nothing against going places with Luke, in fact, Luke and Josh were pretty much inseparable since the third grade. Luke even practically lived at the Martin household. The problems were always who else was going to be at the parties. Lucky with his likable, innocent charm, Luke didn’t have many problems with people. On the other hand, the few times Josh had actually followed up on one of his friend’s plans, his closed-off personality managed to get him shoved into a corner, forced between making-out couples and a wall.

“Fine.” Luke rolled his eyes, not all that surprised by the outcome of the conversation.

After Luke’s statement, laughter erupted from the other end of the table, “No, I’m serious! I totally got to third base with Stacy! I touched her b***s and everything!” One of Josh’s friends, Nate, was trying to convince the rest of his friends of his ‘accomplishments’.

“Nate, b***s are only second base,” Joey, a small red-headed teen, piped up as he threw a french fry at poor Nate. Another burst of laughter flared up from the surrounding kids at Joey’s comment, surprised that the tiny, little, freckled man knew anything about ‘the game of baseball’.

            As the whole lunch table seemed to be distracted with teasing Nate, Luke took the time to lean into Josh’s ear. In a drained, weak tone, completely different from the previous giddy, confident one, the lanky boy asked, “Can you leave your window open tonight… I don’t think I’ll be able to go home that late.” As soon as Luke finished his request, his eyes skirted around Josh’s. Without hesitation, Josh hooked his arm around his friend’s neck and pulled him close. “Always,” was all he said.

             

Author's Note

The high school takes place in North Carolina, where I used to live. When I lived there, this is basically how school was structured. I now live in California, and the school system is very different, but I wanted to keep the North Carolina feel throughout the story, starting with weather, and continuing with the ways the schools work. If the way how I explain how classes work ever get confusing, let me know and I'll revise it.
With the dialog in this chapter, if it feels slightly cheap, or too stereotypical, I assure you that I've heard conversations much like these throughout the halls. I'm taking the experiences I've had and trying to incorporate them into the story. If they ever seem odd or just not well-written, please tell me and I'll do my best to correct them.

I hope in the chapter I leaked a bit more information about some characters, let me know what/who you're interested in.

~cheers

Reviews

[Zoë]

I'm not interested in how the high school is run, like how classes are assigned and what not, but I am interested in the bell schedule. I know this is different in each place, but in New Mexico school starts way earlier. All Zero hours (the classes before school) start at 6:30, regular classes start at 7:25, school gets out at 2:25, and all after school activities start at 2:30. The bell schedule you're using is very reasonable, I just find it confusing and weird because of my schedule.
I can see where you think the dialogue is a bit cliche, but high school is a very stereotypical place, so I don't think it's that much of a problem. If you want to make it a less "cheap" I would suggest adding in conversations about tv shows, video games, interesting activities, and thing that you would think people would never talk about. For example, just the other day my friends and I were contemplating the existence of a "Glasses God" a God that just goes around giving people sucky vision because he feels like it. This can get rid of some of the stereotypical high school stuff, but honestly it's going to be impossible to get rid of all of it.
Although it really depends what social group Josh hangs out with. Conversation styles change with each social group, so it's important to know where Josh falls in the high school hierarchy. If he hangs out with band kids, the dialogue should be less cliche. But if he hang out with somewhat 'popular' kids, then your conversations are spot on.
I'm really liking the story so far and I can't wait to see what happens next!